Guest Post

To create unforgettable scenes, purposefully choose settings that trigger character emotions, intensify conflicts, or evoke specific moods.

To be vivid on the page, each character you write should display life-long emotional responses to wounds that occurred in their past.

Flashback can be a potent tool for presenting essential backstory, as long as you apply it without interrupting the story’s forward momentum.

One author shares what she’s learned about using voice dictation to write in any setting: on a walk, washing the dishes, even lying in bed.

When soliciting blurbs or appearances on podcasts, its important to convey—in just a few lines—what you and your writing are about.

Advice on getting your foot in the door as an on-air expert, from someone who spent two decades booking authors for TV appearances.

Identifying and bolstering your story’s theme can develop a layered narrative that resonates with readers on conscious and subconscious levels.

To make readers care, you generally need to get three things on your novel’s opening pages before the inciting incident arrives.

This author didn’t think of herself as a humor writer until her readers told her otherwise, so she dug into what makes her work funny.

Many people argue using bad-faith tactics. Much more difficult is to engage the best ideas we disagree with, and explain our opposition clearly.

Whether you’re a plotter, a pantser, or something in between, a little planning can help prepare you for the challenges of writing multiples.

An author who self-published before the current tools existed offers some thoughts on the mindset required to succeed in this business.

Reading like a writer, focusing on the craft and mechanics on the page, will offer insight to how beautiful and meaningful novels are made.

Writing an opinion piece about a topic in the news or in the zeitgeist is a way for even inexperienced writers to get the attention of editors.

An independent author wonders why two publishing services companies sell their clients’ books at different prices than Amazon.

Readers of your work create their own idea of you that is, in a sense, a fictional character. Explore voice by leaning into that fiction.

Understanding how your memories work, and what to do with the less reliable ones, will help you with the meaning-making process.

While artists don’t necessarily need an agent to get into comics, these tips will help graphic novelists seeking traditional publication.

When choosing comp titles, try envisioning your book as an entry on a family tree to help identify both close and distant relations.

One author believes that celebrating your rejections is part of how you take your power back.

An expert discovered that the accepted best practices for Facebook ads were driving down results, so he forged a new methodology.

When a book is being pitched as a murder-mystery with comedic undertones, it’s important to seed those elements in the opening pages.

Today is the day you start building financial habits to acknowledge the inherent monetary worth of your writing.

As authors, how do we make social media work for us? Here’s how one history nerd used the power of TikTok to create a community of readers.

Memoirists must make conscious decisions about time—the time frame of the story and where in time you are standing while telling your tale.